Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
There seems to be a lot of disagreement about what these mean to different posters here. I'm often surprised to read what some posters' descriptions of these are.
So, using Google street view, your own images, whatever, show us what you think of, or what you consider to be idea/stereotypical, when you read/hear the words urban, suburban, and/or rural.
I've posted these before, but these are images of what I consider ideal urban neighborhoods: (one could easily walk to stores, restaurants, and mass-transit to get downtown for work)
About as low density as you can get without being rural. THIS is sprawl. I hate this development with a passion. You can find this throughout all of broward county. This could be considered medium-income. $300-400k homes. That's not that much in Miami.
Suburban mid-to high-income residential. Dense enough not to be sprawl, spread out enough to allow for a sense security and ownership. Just outside of downtown. My ideal neighborhood.
Suburban mixed medium- and low-density residential. "Middle" ring of suburbs. Outside of city proper but not an exurb. Downtown commutable. Not considered sprawl. Not exactly ideal development either. This is where I'm from. The thing in the background is not empty space, it's a school baseball/football field.
Thanks for he responses so far. Based on what nei posted, it seems the midwest and northeast have similar development patterns. While my example of suburban commercial doesn't look like the example nei posted, there are areas like that, but they are closer to the cities.
Thanks for he responses so far. Based on what nei posted, it seems the midwest and northeast have similar development patterns. While my example of suburban commercial doesn't look like the example nei posted, there are areas like that, but they are closer to the cities.
From pictures I've seen the housing styles and patterns in the midwest are similar to the northeast though I think the midwest in general tends to be a bit less dense and the pattern tends to be a bit more gridlike.
Your urban neighborhood looks much less dense than the urban neighborhoods I posted. I suppose it might be because you chose a small city. A smaller city get less dense than a large city and still be walkable because the distances are smaller. The small town I live in now has houses of that style (but not price!) and lot size, though the ones closer to the center have much smaller yards and lot sizes. And interesting link on the different lot sizes in my town (~ 30,000 people):
I like the 10-15 unit blocks the most. Miami seems to have a lot apartment complexes in its urban centers compared to northeast, while its suburbs seem to be medium but not low density. The urban neighborhoods I posted were obviously in major metropolitan areas not small cities. They were in the denser parts of the metro areas but not the center so as pick what I thought would be a more typical urban. If I wanted to pick the most urban areas I could think of I would have chosen an extreme example like this:
Yeah, I should have been more clear. My examples of "urban" are what I like, not the densest example. I've posted those images before, and was told they were suburban. (and I understand their point, but that is what urban looks like in most cities I'm familiar with) My current neighborhood is more dense than the one I posted, at about 8 houses per acre.
Thanks for the link. I've never really thought of neighborhoods in terms of units per acre before. I guess that goes to show how much of a novice I am.
About as low density as you can get without being rural. THIS is sprawl. I hate this development with a passion. You can find this throughout all of broward county. This could be considered medium-income. $300-400k homes. That's not that much in Miami.
Suburban mid-to high-income residential. Dense enough not to be sprawl, spread out enough to allow for a sense security and ownership. Just outside of downtown. My ideal neighborhood.
Suburban mixed medium- and low-density residential. "Middle" ring of suburbs. Outside of city proper but not an exurb. Downtown commutable. Not considered sprawl. Not exactly ideal development either. This is where I'm from. The thing in the background is not empty space, it's a school baseball/football field.
The example I highlighted, what you call your ideal neighborhood, seems to be a little more dense than the last neighborhood I just posted pictures of. (maybe 10-12 units per acre?) But the architecture is very different, of course. Would the larger houses on the SW side of the street, with the gated driveways, be considered McMansions? Rust belt cities don't see that kind of development. People would rather build new out in the suburbs/exurbs, instead.
What's with the gated driveways? I've never really seen them much before except in a few NYC neighborhoods that have been retrofitted for cars. But they are not the norm even there. Do you have them in South Florida because of crime or some sorta stylistic reason?
Those bigger houses you said, they would be considered middle income houses out west in the exurbs, but with that proximity to the downtown area one of those can easily fetch over $1 million. You could say that in Miami that is certainly not an average home. Not sure about McMansion but definitely more wealthy areas.
The Youngstown houses look fairly similar to some in my town. The first Cleveland link looks really nice; kinda like the Cambridge, maybe a bit less dense. Very cute looking houses. Is that one of the nicer neighborhoods in Cleveland? Shame the row houses are gone, but that Cleveland neighborhood looks nicer.
On another topic, Downtown NYC has a very classic old urban feel. The street layout and width is from colonial times, giving it almost European feel except for the tall building, which create a rather unique canyon feeling. A few streets even still have cobblestone! Still, the much of the architecture of old for American standards with a mix of modern. There is some residents as well a good mix of shops and restaurants, though the financial district can feel deserted outside of work hours. The narrow maze of streets make it almost unnavigable by car, adding to the pedestrian atmosphere. The only part where the old street layout was changed is the World Trade Center Site (two blocks from the Ann St link I posted), which was actually a state funded urban renewal project. Anyhow, not a place I'd want to live but interesting to check on Google Streetview for its combination of a street layout unusual to American cities creating "canyons".
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.